'An American writer and retired professor says Tel Aviv is imposing policies on Washington through US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and his senior advisor Jared Kushner, and if Trump continues to follow Israel’s policy, there might be a war between the United States and Iran.

James Petras, who has written dozens of books on international issues, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday while commenting on reports that Trump is planning to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, a Trump loyalist and foreign policy hard-liner, especially on Iran.

According to reports, Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a foreign policy hard-liner and one of Trump's staunchest supporters in Congress, is likely to replace Pompeo as the CIA director. The pro-Israel senator has always worked against the interests of Iran.

“There is a great deal of confusion and rumors that have not been confirmed about cabinet changes. However, given the fact that in the recent period there has been a great deal of resignations, expulsions and other chaos, the situation could evolve in the direction of replacing Tillerson with Pompeo,” Professor Petras said.

“Pompeo is much more in the line of the nationalist politics which is essentially to tighten up economic relations with China along the lines of taking sanctions. It’s probably to continue the policy of hostility toward Iran and Russia, but it’s not clear whether this will lead to a war with North Korea since North Korea has nuclear weapons now that could retaliate,” he stated.'